12.2- The holiday season gives much joy to many people.

12.2-

The holiday season gives much joy to many people.  A part of it is because when we focus on giving there is an experience of the best of human feelings.

The best of leaders is not good enough to meet our deepest needs.

Our need is for the forgiveness of sins.  This requires repentance and the blood of the perfect, lamb of God, Jesus Christ.

For the heart to be set to receive Jesus as the leader needed instead of an earthly leader it requires an opening of the heart.  God is the one who opens hearts, but uses various things to open our hearts.

Hard, jarring words of truth can sometimes accomplish this for us.

Produce fruit.

You can’t depend upon your grandparents religion to set you up with God.

When you are living an empty life there will be harsh realities that will come to you.

When we share with those in need we experience the best life and the real life that God wants for His children.  To use our blessings to meet needs is to feel satisfaction.

Luke 3.

3 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, ² in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness. ³ And he came into all the district around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins; ⁴ as it is written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet,

“The voice of one crying in the wilderness,
‘Make ready the way of the Lord,
Make His paths straight.
⁵ ‘Every ravine will be filled,
And every mountain and hill will be ^[a]brought low;
The crooked will become straight,
And the rough roads smooth;
⁶ And all ^[b]flesh will see the salvation of God.’”

⁷ So he began saying to the crowds who were going out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Therefore bear fruits in keeping with repentance, and do not begin to say ^[c]to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham for our father,’ for I say to you that from these stones God is able to raise up children to Abraham. ⁹ Indeed the axe is already laid at the root of the trees; so every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”
¹⁰ And the crowds were questioning him, saying, “Then what shall we do?” ¹¹ And he would answer and say to them, “The man who has two tunics is to share with him who has none; and he who has food is to do likewise.” ¹² And some tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, “Teacher, what shall we do?” ¹³ And he said to them, “^[d]Collect no more than what you have been ordered to.” ¹⁴ Some soldiers were questioning him, saying, “And what about us, what shall we do?” And he said to them, “Do not take money from anyone by force, or accuse anyone falsely, and be content with your wages.”